Victoria 3 – How to Build a Unique Urban Buildings

Introduction

In Victoria 3 there is a small gap explaining how to build Unique Buildings and Canals. The goal of this guide is to get you arc-welding steel beams and dredging canals in no time. Please note this is as of version 1.1, and the Victoria 3 devs may alter this as the game progresses. It’s not recommended to rush these buildings as an early micro-nation as the costs of funding and maintaining these structures may hurt your economy more than the gained benefits.

Monuments

One of the more straightforward groups of these is Monuments. In some cases, these already exist in certain parts of the globe. You can find the White House in Washington D.C. or the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, and are visible on the map.

All monuments are state-specific, and it may help to fully control and incorporate the required state.

Certain Monuments, such as the Statue of Liberty and the Eiffel Tower require a specific tech as well, in this case, the Society research Steel Frame Buildings.

Located under the Buildings icon, scroll to the bottom to find Potential Urban Buildings, then select the Monument icon and select the state to build. If the counter on the Monument Thumbnail is 0, it is possible a requirement has not been met. Unfortunately the pantheon of paradox gods who gave us this game has decided against Monument stacking in a state.

Skyscrapers

Thankfully, any country in any state can build a skyscraper given its requirements are met:

• A fully integrated state with an Urban center of 20 or larger
• Bureaucracy production of over 500 units
• Society research for Steel Frame Buildings
• Production research for Reinforced Concrete
• Complete a survey

Once these requirements are met, you are now eligible to lay the groundwork. A decision (available on the Decisions tab under Journals) allows you to begin a project to find a suitable skyscraper site. When the two year timer has the survey complete, you can build the skyscraper in an eligible State. Located under Buildings, scroll to the bottom to find Potential Urban buildings and select the Skyscraper option and select the state to build.

Note: Its been mentioned that you may be able to build more than one skyscraper per country. However, playing as a fairly egalitarian United States of America, I was only able to build one skyscraper, despite being late game and having multiple urban centers with 50+ levels.

Canals

The Panama and Suez canals are something of a combination of the previous Unique Building requirements.

• You need to control the required state, integration is optional
• A survey is required, available under the Decisions tab under Journals
• Building requirements after survey completion

The survey takes a few short years to complete, followed by a building requirement that also takes roughly as long. Again, you can find this at the bottom of the Buildings tab under Potential Urban Buildings. You may have to select state funding for the building for it to be fully manned. Generally, it’s easiest to conquer the entire state of Panama or Sinai earlier on from Columbia or Egypt.

Note: Try to do this before other great powers are able to intervene, possibly throwing a wrench at you with a puppet country or a treaty port in the required state.

Summary

There you have it. You should now be well on your way to collecting those Monument Buffs, letting the world’s major powers recognize your prestige, and fear your naval prowess!

If you find I missed something please let me know in the comments below!